REMEMBRANCE DAY

1. What is Remembrance Day?

Time: 11 November Purpose: Special day to remember all those men and women who were killed during the two World Wars and other conflicts (known as Armistice Day, after the Second World War renamed: Remenbrance Day) Special services are held at war memorials and churches all over Britain. Place: Cenotaph in Whitehall, London.

The Queen lays the first wreath at the Cenotaph.

People leave small wooden crosses by the memorials in remembrance of a family member who died in war.

2. The Last Post

The Last Post played to introduce the two minute silence in Remembrance Day ceremonies. It is usually played on a bugle.

3. Ode of Remembrance
A poem called For the Fallen by Laurence Binyon (1869-1943) is often read aloud during the ceremony:

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old Age shall not weary them, nor the year condemn. At the growing down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.

4. Poppy Day
Remembrane Day is also known as Poppy Day because its traditionally to wear an artificial poppy. Poppies are sold by the Royal British Legion, a charity

dedicated to helping war veterans.

5. Two Minute Silence

At 11am on Remembrance Day, a two minutes observed at war memorials and other public spaces across the country

The First Two Minute Silence in London (11th November 1919) as reported in the Manchester Guardian, 12th November 1919. 'The first stroke of eleven produced a magical effect. The tram cars glided into stillness, motors ceased to cough and fume, and stopped dead, and the mighty-limbed dray horses hunched back upon their loads and stopped also, seeming to do it of their own volition. Someone took off his hat, and with a nervous hesitancy the rest of the men bowed their heads also. Here and there an old soldier could be detected slipping unconsciously into the posture of 'attention'. An elderly woman, not far away, wiped her eyes, and the man beside her looked white and stern. Everyone stood very still ... The hush deepened. It had spread over the whole city and become so pronounced as to impress one with a sense of audibility. It was a silence which was almost pain ... And the spirit of memory brooded over it all.'